AN OPEN LETTER.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 251, 16 February 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

AN OPEN LETTER.

TO HE Hit YON BETIIMANNHOLLWEG

My Dear Bethmann-HoMweg,—Allow nic to introduce myself. A mere Canadian, but a professional peace-maker, and an enthusiastic peace-lover, as all Canadians are. You will understand, therefore, how my heart leaped with joy the other day when 1 saw the headline in one of the London newspapers, "Germany Offers Peace." We Canadians ardently long lor peace. It is for peace some thousands of us are on the warpath just now. i'or 2-3 years our sky has been disfigured by a dark cloudbank on the horizon, which we recognised as the Gorman .Menace. Wc grow tired of that cloud-bank, and now that it has broken into a fiery halo of war we are here to do what littlo we can to chango the world's sky into the bright, sunlit blue el peace. Canadians we are; do you know us? Ask your boys who were at Ypres, one, twice. thrice; those, also, who wero at the Soninie, determined to "hack through." We are some of the chaps that took your "hacking"; but you didn't get through, and—a friendly warning—you won't. You can't imagine how bitterly }ou disappointed mo by your speech, in which you introduced' your ''worldhistoric" peace offer. You may earnestly desire peace; I firmly believe you and your people do; but as a preliminary to p'aco negotiations your speech was hardly a success. In short, if you will pardon my blunt, alliterative way of speaking, your speech, at this distance. sounded like blazing, bombastic, bullying bunkum. The dove of peace is supposed to coo; your dove pawed the earth like a bellowing bull. MAPS AM) MEN. You can say "Look at the map." You have been changing the colour in spots, and so pleased are you that you summon the world to admire your handiwork. "Look at the map," you say. We answer, "Look at the men." Maps don't win wars —men do—men, my dear Bethmann ; men, do you hear!-' Yuo can roll up a map with one hand; but can you roll up men? Look at the men 011 your every front —thoso hosts of Russian men, of Italian men, those steady, stern-faced, enduring men of France; and those cool-headed, cheery-hearted, dogged men'of British breed. Have you roiled them upH You thought you had rolled up the men of little Belgium, gallant little Belgium, and the men of Serbia; but they are coming back at you again. True, you have rolled back tho*e men on your every trout-; but you haven't rolled them up, and to-day there are millions of us unbroken, unbeaten, and — note this carefully, my dear lfollweg —when next they come at you they will con e wrtli the machinery of war, and will meet you on something lik* even terms; and they ask nothing more than a fair field and 110 favour. You know this is true. You learnt this at Yerdun —disastrous, glorious Verdun—you learnt this 011 the Scmnie. I cannot speak for other armies, but throughout the s ction of the British Army that met your men oil th" Somme there is only one eoiniction, and that is that they have "got you beat." They may be mistaken, but 1 am telling you wlnt J know; they are absolutely convinced that they have got you beaten. So, my d- ar Holly, wlun you arc writing your next peace speech get your eyes off the maps for a time and let them rest upon men. Then your dove of peace will utter itself 111 notes more in keeping with its own gentle nature. No. my dear llerr von Bt thmannHollwi'g, because we earnestly and continuously long and pray for ju-acc. we intend to press this blood-red path of war for months, or for years, ;t matters not, until your people are ready to accept the just and honourable peace that we and our Allies stand ready to olf- r —a peace that shall for ever eliminate from tlie world the mad menace of German Militarism.—l am, etc. CHARLES \V. GORDON* (Major.) (The Rev. Major Gordon, the writer of the above letter, is a chaplain '.sit'i the Canadian tones, and lias I icon in France for nearly a year and a half, sharing the life of the men at the front, lip is new returning to Canada. ;o do two months' rifruiting work. He is better known 5o the iiterary world as Ralph Connor, the author ol " The Sl-.y l'l.'et." and many other storieO